


Rearrange your bones

by MarauderCracker



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post S02, Things you said through your teeth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-10-12
Packaged: 2018-04-19 11:33:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4744787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarauderCracker/pseuds/MarauderCracker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She keeps waiting for an attack at every turn, he wishes for war because he can't stop himself from thinking in times of peace. They fit the way that molars fit against each other, like an aching jaw, like a bitten tongue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This will probably be a series of post-S02 drabbles. They might be two or three, they might be ten, who the hell knows. I'm lost to this pairing forever. You can find the post on tumblr, [here](http://queerhawkeye.tumblr.com/post/128518596209/).

The aftermath seems to stretch on forever --she feels uneasy, untethered, unbalanced. She doesn't dream, but she barely sleeps either. Raven lies awake, listening to the soft creaks of the Ark and the constant whispers of the woods, to the murmur in her chest. Some nights, she doesn't even take the brace off, twists and turns around in her too-soft mattress, keeps checking for the handgun under her pillow.

Out of the wreckage they start building more than just defenses, and she keeps hoping that working until her arms are throbbing from the effort will help her rest easier at night but it never works. She drags Monty along with her to fix every last cut wire and burned switch in the Ark; she gets Wick to help her reinforce the fence; gets Miller and Harper's help to install traps all over the Ark that can be activated in case of attack. She sits at the edge of her bed, unfastens the buckles around her leg with steady hands, wonders when she'll get a chance to try out her new bombs.

There is no peace, there is no war. The truce was broken the second Commander Lexa walked away with her army, but it seems like some kind of honor or shame has prevented the Tree People from attacking. Raven thinks of it as justice --the same kind of unrelenting, vicious law that she carries on her arms and torso in the form of long, jarred scars. They are the traitors, and so it's the Ark that now has the right to retaliate first. Raven wakes up in the middle of the night, reaches for a pencil and starts drafting the schematics for a new weapon on the first piece of paper she can find.

With her fingers cramped from clutching the pencil too tight and her neck tense like it's been for days now, Raven leans her back against the cold metal walls of her cabin and glares at what she's just scribbled. She doesn't have the materials to make it work --it might be decades before they have the manpower and resources to start mining again, to even  _think_ of building the infrastructure needed to purify metals. If they're lucky, they might be able to re-purpose whatever factories and plants that survives the bombs and the abandonment, but even that will have to wait until they're more than two hundred ragtag losers scrapping for food and living in the remains of a space station. Raven throws the paper towards the wall, and it lands near her discarded brace.

She's got a bruise where one of the damn thing's buckles has been digging into her thigh for too long --it's high enough that she can feel the pain but it's a dull ache, she presses on it to try and make sure that it's real. Raven digs her fingers on the purple-ish skin and thinks that she should design a new brace, one that she can put on quickly in case they're attacked in the middle of the night. She pushes herself off the bed, grabs the crutches instead.

The guards nod at her when she passes by --one of the women mutters a "How ya doin'?", Mr. Miller gives her a warm smile-- but nobody questions her presence. It's two in the morning and Camp Jaha feels like something out of a dream, out of a nightmare. Raven isn't one for eloquence but she wishes she could put a name to the silence that surrounds her, to the fist that tightens around her throat while the rest of the Ark lies in deep slumber. She digs her nails into the crutches and tries to quicken her pace without making too much noise.

She doesn't feel safe anywhere, but at least among the broken radios and discarded gun-parts she feels useful. She digs through the materials around her workplace --Wick has at least ten bottles of moonshine hidden here, every time she finds one instead of the bolt or piece of metal she's looking for she grows a little more amused and a lot more annoyed. 

There are scraps of leather and just enough unused wire, she just needs-- there is a noise at the workshop's entrance, and the schematics that she'd been drawn in her head disappear off her mind. She puts her weight on her good leg, turns around and uses the force of her movement to whip the crutch against the intruder. It catches Bellamy on the ribs, and he groans and steps back. 

"Fuck, sorry," Raven mutters, and quickly follows it up with "what the fuck are you doing here?" even as she moves the crutch back under her arm and steps closer to him. Bellamy clutches at his side, gives her a tight-lipped smile. "I was checking on you, idiot," he says through gritted teeth, lets Raven help him to a stool. She leans against the table so she can stand without the crutches, and gestures for Bellamy to let her see where she hit him.

"I'm sorry," she says, and "don't sneak up on me, jackass." Bellamy's laughter is pained, but he allows Raven to lift up his shirt. There's an angry red mark where the metallic end of the crutch hit his skin, and it'll probably bruise, but it's not bad. Not as bad as most of what the two of them have endured, anyways. "I haven't slept anything," she starts, sounding only half apologetic.

"I almost shot Monty for knocking on my door three night ago," he interrupts, and they laugh but it's bitter and tired and weary, and Bellamy's cackle is cut short too soon when the movement makes his ribs hurt. The shirt slips from Raven's fingers, falls back into place. 

"Wanna help me with this?" she finally asks, and Bellamy accepts without asking what 'this' is. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When will this pairing let me live.

"Where are Harper and-" Bellamy turns around, the names hanging off his lips as he scans the woods with sharp, terrified eyes. He's got the gun's safety unlocked before he even realizes, but there is nobody to shoot at. He feels Raven tugging at his arm, trying to drag him bodily away from the clear. He can't help but resist --Harper, Miller, Monty; they were out here too, they only had Nathan's handgun-- he has to find them. 

"Bellamy! They were going to the dropship! They're safe! Come here!" An arrow barely misses him, he can feel the sharp sting as it rips the fabric and the skin of his shoulder before sinking into a tree. Raven pulls even harder, makes him lose his balance and he finally snaps out of it, follows her in a clumsy run for cover. She has a hard time running, so Bellamy grabs her by the waist and pulls her along.

They almost make it behind a fallen tree unscathed. Almost being Raven's bitten-back scream of pain as the arrow sinks on her upper left arm, the falter in Bellamy's step when he realizes she's hurt. He doesn't allow them to stop, though, hoists her up against his side until her feet are barely on the ground at all and runs the last few feet until they can reach cover as a fifth arrow whistles way too close to his head. They hide behind the tree trunk and Bellamy puts Raven down almost delicately --as much as he could in a moment like this. She's biting her tongue, trying to keep her breathing even as her eyes swell up with tears of pain. Bellamy looks back through the foliage, tries to make out the shooter, but the woods look ominous and impenetrable.

"The truce is officially over, then?" Raven asks, a whisper that is barely intelligible because of how hard she's clenching her jaw. Bellamy squints at the woods, raises his gun slowly to aim between the branches of the fallen tree. He can feel Raven's pained twitches where she's got her shoulder pressed against his ribs, he can feel a rock digging into his knee. He pulls the trigger, and the bang of the gun is quickly followed by the sound of a broken branch, a body hitting the floor.

"I'm guessing it is," he answers, looks and listens for a sign that their attacker might have survived. Nothing moves, but he keeps gripping his gun with tight fingers even as he turns to look at Raven, ready to turn around and shoot again at the slightest hint of a threat. He doesn't think about how this might be the first person he's killed since Mount Weather, not yet. "Let me see," he says, reaches for her arm and tries to keep his touch soft even though he feels like his entire body might start shaking at any moment.

"Grab the radio," Raven interrupts, shifting away from his hand. He can tell that the arrow has shifted inside her arm because her whole body convulses, she shuts her eyes and takes a deep, gasping breath. He doesn't think about how strong and resilient she is, either, not yet. "Check on them."

He follows the order without questioning --later, he'll chastise himself for forgetting about the radios-- reaches across her lap to grab the walkie hanging from her brace. For a second, his thumb lingers over the red button, afraid that he might call and not get an answer. "Miller? Miller, you alright?"

Raven looks up at him and he can see in her eyes that she's scared too. They hold each other's glances for one long, excruciating moment. "Bellamy? Something wrong? We're at the dropship." Nathan's voice sounds worried over the radio's interference. Raven lets out a long sigh, and Bellamy can't help but do the same. She gives him a small, pained smile as he talks back into the radio, says "We're okay, did you make it to the dropship?"

Bellamy reassures him that they're okay, and they'll be with them in a few minutes. "Y'all better not be lazing around," Raven jokes, and Monty's laughter comes cracking and distorted but still clear enough that Bellamy feels it like a calming balm against the back of his neck. He doesn't think about how Monty doesn't laugh much anymore, not yet. Instead, he pockets the radio and turns to Raven again. She's got her right hand around her left arm, tight like a vice, and Bellamy can see the way her fingers are turning white, the way her neck is tense from clenching her jaw so hard.

"Bellamy..." she warns, but there is no gentle way to snap the arrow, and Bellamy knows that Raven knows this. She hisses through her teeth when the arrowhead shifts inside her skin --there are tears on her eyes again Bellamy swallows hard-- but it's just a second. He drops the rest of the arrow to the floor, not even looking, and accepts the knife Raven hands him, uses it to cut through his own shirt, wraps the fabric around what's left of the shaft so it'll stop the bleeding. He pockets the knife, then moves to wrap an arm around her back, and Raven pulls away again. "What the fuck are you doing, Bellamy?" 

"Uh, trying to pick you up?" Raven rolls her eyes at him, bends her working leg and pushes against the fallen tree at her back to stand up. "It's my arm that's hurt, dumbass," she says, now looking down at where he's still crouching. He jumps to stand up, and she almost looks amused. "Your shoulder is bleeding, by the way."

She starts walking towards the dropship, in the opposite direction of where the shooter must have fallen, and Bellamy hesitates for a moment. "Bellamy," she calls, stops and turns to look at him, "Bellamy, it doesn't matter."

He gets to her side in a couple long strides and, even though it's just her arm that's hurt, she still lets him put an arm around her shoulders, still leans against his side. He doesn't think about it, not yet.


	3. Chapter 3

She doesn't get to think of Earth as beautiful very often. She thinks of it raw, bloodied, vicious. She thinks of a friend's body hanging from an oak tree, she thinks of the blood flowing down the river like an image out of a biblical myth, she thinks of the woods surrounding her like a maze. Whatever wonder she got a chance to feel during her first day on the ground is now wounded, scarred, forever tarnished by the horrors of war. 

Instead, she looks up at the sky and thinks of whether she'll ever be able to float in Zero-G again. If it wouldn't have been better to get floated after that first spacewalk. If she would be called a coward for giving up now. She shakes that last thought off her shoulders, out of her head. She can't allow herself to linger on such ideas. 

"Moonshine?" Bellamy's voice comes from behind her. Raven stops fiddling with the straps of her brace and puts her hand on the ground so she can twist around and look at him. She takes on his dirty shirt, on his messy hair, on the dark circles under his eyes. He looks --Raven doesn't know how to express it. Instead, she pats the dirt besides her and nods, and she's grateful for the half-smile that hangs off his lips as he moves to sit by her side.

"The sun hasn't even set," she comments, gesturing towards the bottle in his hand. Bellamy fiddles with the cap, turning it one side and the other as he shifts on the hard ground to try and find a comfortable position. He ends up mirroring Raven, with his knees bent just enough that he can lean forward and rest his forearms on his thighs. "We can wait till night, if you want," he finally answers, throws her what was probably meant to be a grin but looks more like a tired grimace. The sun is only a thin line of red over the horizon, and the sky over their heads is already covered in stars.

"I think we could forget propriety just this once."

She watches with amusement as Bellamy uncaps the bottle and takes it to his mouth almost in a hurry, takes a long swig that leaves his lips wet and his mouth tense with the effort not to cough. He throws his head back to swallow the liquor, Raven follows the line of his throat with her eyes.

"Don't you ever want to..." he starts, then stops abruptly. Bellamy looks at the fence --at the woods on the other side-- and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He hands Raven the bottle, his eyes catching hers only for a second before he's staring off into the darkness around camp again. "Don't you ever wanna go?"

For a moment, Raven wonders if he's talking about Clarke. Her name is always lingering right on the tip of everyone's tongues, always a mixture of worry, resentment and longing. Bellamy must catch the thought on her face, because he shakes his head just so and makes a visible effort to word out his ideas. Raven takes the bottle to her lips but doesn't drink just yet, pretends to look out of the fence but observes Bellamy out of the corner of her eye instead.

He tangles and untangles his fingers, mutters, "Not alone." (Not like she did.) "Maybe not now." (When it doesn't feel like being selfish.) "But someday. All of us." (Whatever is left of us.) "Find another place."

She drinks because she doesn't know how to say that she feels like she might see a corpse rising from the ground at any moment, that the woods feel like a cemetery and Mount Weather's outline looks like a gravestone whenever she looks at it. Instead of words she has the burning of Monty's too-strong moonshine down her throat. She swallows hard, mumbles "yeah, that'd be nice," through gritted teeth and passes Bellamy the bottle. 

The sun finally sets, and the last vestige of red slowly vanishes from the sky. They drink in silence for a while, while the cold of nighttime settles over them --Raven feels her right leg starting to go numb and she pushes at her left leg to straighten it; leans back on her forearms so she won't be putting so much strain on her lower back. Bellamy doesn't move for a long minute and, from this angle, Raven can only see his cheekbones silhouetted by the fence's lights, his hair moving softly in the breeze. 

"Do you think there are still entire cities out there?" he asks after a while, and Raven isn't sure if he's talking to her or just thinking out loud until he shifts to look at her. He turns around and sits with his legs crossed at the ankles, his hip against hers and his hand brushing her left thigh right where she can still feel it. "Libraries full of rotting books? Museums?" he say, and he's looking straight at her but Raven doesn't feel like he's actually  _seeing_ her. "Or maybe whatever survived the bombs has been raided already."

Raven accepts the bottle when he hands it, shifts to lean all of her weight on her right arm so she can drink without spilling. It doesn't burn as much anymore. "Maybe we'll get a chance to find out."


	4. Chapter 4

He stops mid-motion, hovers with the plastic curtain caught in his hand and one foot inside the workshop, one still waiting on the corridor. Waiting for permission, or for her to tell him to fuck off without even bothering to look. Trying to remember how he ended up here, maybe --he knows he was heading back for his cabin at some point, didn't even realize he was turning right instead of left. 

Bellamy had been thinking about the winter --Kane is right, the kids living in tents outside of the Ark will have to move in if they want to survive the cold, and the Ark is going to get  _cramped_ , and they really need to fix the insulation before it starts snowing. Miller will probably bunk with his dad, or maybe with Monty, and Bellamy can't really think of anyone else he'd actually tolerate as a roommate for three entire months. Anyone but Raven, and that's probably why he took the wrong turn, though he's not about to ask Raven to share a room with him. She'd probably laugh, or throw a screwdriver at his head.

He follows Raven's movements with his eyes --still holding the curtain barely open, still one foot in and one out-- watches as she stretches over the table to grab a scrap of wire, grabs her left thigh with both hands and moves it so she'll be able to sit more comfortably, and then hunches over whatever she's working on again. Bellamy can picture the way she must be squinting, brow furrowed and jaw tight while her fingers move deftly, carefully.

"Are you gonna stand there all night?" she asks after a few seconds, a couple minutes, maybe half an hour. He can't really tell, but his hand feels heavy from holding it up for so long. He takes one step forward, lets the curtain fall in place behind him.

"I got lost in my own thoughts," he only half-lies, and moves to stand next to her stool. She's working on... he has no idea of what it is, but it doesn't look like a weapon, and it doesn't look like a communication device either. Her hands are black with grease, and there are dark stains on her chin and her forehead that look distinctly like finger tracks. She's wrapping a wire around a piston meticulously, and the angle of her jaw tells him she might be biting the inside of her cheek. "What are you working on?"

Raven only gives him a hum for an answer, gives an experimental tug to the wire. "Get those pliers," she indicates, giving a vague nod to the left. Bellamy scans the table --it's cluttered but not messy, and all the tools are lined up in what is probably a perfectly logical order for Raven-- and finds a plier next to a hammer. He goes to grab it, but Raven makes a sound with her tongue against her teeth, says "the other one, Bellamy," in a tone that sounds equal parts amused and impatient.

"Cut there, but leave an inch," she tells him, holding the wire tense so he can cut through it easily. He hesitates for a second, but Raven gives him an expectant look --she might as well ask 'do I have to do it myself?'-- and Bellamy steps closer. His right arm brushes Raven's left and his fingers brush Raven's fingers and she says "just a little bit... right there," and the snap of the wire echoes in Bellamy's ears.

"It was the heating system's engine, I'm trying to get it to work again," Raven tells him, grinning up at him, so close that he might drop the pliers or knock something fragile off the table if he doesn't step away soon. He doesn't step away. "See if we can survive the winter without needing to wear sixteen layers of clothing at any given time." He smiles back, looks at the table so he can set the pliers down without bumping his hand into anything.

When he looks back at Raven she's still smiling, though now the cocky, proud grin has turned softer. Bellamy knows that he probably can read Raven better than anyone else on camp right now, and still he has no idea of what her smile could possibly mean. She's got grease on her nose, and the shorter strands of hair have started to come loose off her hair-tie and now fall over her forehead.

"If you manage to get us through this winter, I'll teach myself how to carve wood and make a statue of you," he jokes, and Raven's laughter is the easier, lighter he's heard in weeks. She shifts on her stool, the buckle that holds her brace right over the knee digging into Bellamy's thigh, and she bumps his shoulder with her left fist --adds another stain to his already dirty jacket. "You better start practicing, then."

Bellamy thinks he might have been staring at her for too long --he does that way too often-- because Raven tilts up her chin and raises her eyebrows, asks "What's up, shooter?" with that same unreadable air about her gesture and her voice that Bellamy wishes he could disassemble and study in the same way she inspects every broken piece of machinery that lands on her worktable.

His answer is a shrug --her knee is pressing against his thigh and Bellamy knows that she probably doesn't feel it but he's hyper-aware of the contact-- he manages to drag his eyes away from her face but it only serves him to fixate on her fingers. She's fiddling with what's let of the wire, hands resting on her lap and staining her jeans with every movement. "Kane was being a dick, I didn't want to spend the rest of the night plotting his murder all by myself."

"Want me to help you kill 'im?" Raven asks --she looks almost completely serious. Bellamy chuckles, tells her "I don't think I could get away with treason again," and maybe doesn't quite manage the joking tone he was aiming for. Raven cringes a little, but Bellamy disregards her concern with a quick shrug and a "gimme something useful to do."

He helps her organize the bolts and nails, busies himself around her workstation while she keeps trying to make the engine work. It's peaceful and easy in a way nothing is anymore --way past midnight, in the quietness only broken by Raven's curses at the broken machinery and the occasional piece of metal slipping from Bellamy's fingers and tumbling down to the floor, everything else seems to fade away. The fear, the grief, the worry. The political tensions and the constant threat of the Tree People don't exist here, there are no accusing eyes on his back or the kids' expectations and trust on his shoulders. 

Bellamy doesn't really notice the moment Raven falls asleep, busy moving the boxes with bullets from under her table to one of the shelves, until he turns to make a joke and finds the engine has been pushed away and she's resting her head on her forearms, crouched over the table. She looks tired, but more relaxed than he's seen her in weeks. It feels mean to wake her up, but he knows she's going to ache all over in the morning if he lets her sleep there.

"Fuck off," she mumbles when he goes to put an arm over her shoulders. She frowns before she's even opened her eyes but, when she manages to see him, she just lets her lids drop shut once again. "Let me sleep, Bellamy," Raven mutters, hiding her face from the light, but she lets him pick her up without insulting him again. 

(She's heavier now, the weight of her brace pulling down Bellamy's arm, but he can still carry her. When she relaxes again, letting her forehead drop against his chest, she feels as light as a feather.)


	5. Chapter 5

The new brace is easier to get on and a little lighter, but Raven's left hip and lower back still ache constantly from having to pull the dead weight of her unresponsive leg and the metallic structure that allows her to walk. The muscle on her left upper thigh is notoriously stronger than the one on her right and, even though she tries to only wear it for moderate spans of time, the brace is always leaving bruises and marks on her leg. She can't feel most of them, though --just three days ago, she cut her left calf with the edge of a loose metal panel in a corridor and didn't notice until Harper freaked out about the bloody footprints she'd been leaving behind her.

She takes her shirt off and drops it on her bed --it doesn't make her feel any less dirty and gross, but at least she doesn't have the rough fabric sticking to her sweaty skin. She wants to let her hair loose but it might be the only part of her that isn't somehow covered in grease, blood, rust or mud, and she wants to keep it that way. 

When she takes off her pants she finds that the lower buckle of her brace has been pressing against the wound, pushing the bandages as Raven walked around camp. There is dry blood on her jeans and the bandage is hanging around her ankle, looks like it has been out of its place for a while. Raven bites back a curse, sits on the bed and leans back so she can push her socks and the bandage off her left foot with her right one. She's considering how to get off the socks on her right foot without doing too much effort when her door opens.

"Reyes, are you coming f-" Bellamy's words die on his lips --his mouth hanging agape, a moment of hesitation where Raven thinks he might just stutter apologies like a teenager or step right back out to the hallway as if he hadn't seen her in her underwear before. She finds that is not at all what has him stuck at the half-open door, though. "Are you okay? How old is that wound?" he asks --she doesn't think he even registers that she's shirtless-- and takes a step closer.

Raven rolls her eyes at him. "It's nothing, just a cut," she says. She knows it looks ugly, but the lack of pain allows her to ignore it --just like she ignores the pain on her back because there is no wound or bruise to show for it. "Close the damn door, Bellamy."

As he turns away from her to close the door, Raven thinks she really needs to get on fixing the electricity so they can make the electronic locks work again --or get herself an old-school, nice chain-and-bolt lock; anything to keep people from barging into her bunk at all times. 'People' are just Monty, Nathan, Harper and Bellamy, but still. She managed to get herself a single bunk, and she really wants to enjoy it. Change in peace, she means.

"Let me see," Bellamy says, taking another step. His movements are slow, giving her plenty of time to cover herself up or tell him to fuck off, but she doesn't. Instead, she shifts to sit with her back to the wall and her leg stretched out on the mattress. The familiarity with which Bellamy goes for the first aid kit by her bed should probably bother her --she decides it's okay. "Why do you keep Monty's booze with the bandages? That's just dangerous."

He sits next to her, rummages through the Ark-made disinfectants and the natural medicines that Lincoln got them until he finds whatever he's looking for. Raven lets him shift her leg to the side and clean the burns and wounds, tries to imagine the alcohol burning as Bellamy applies it to a cut on her thigh.

"Miller killed something today. Some sort of wolf, we think," Bellamy comments --Raven can see that the wound on her calf is bleeding again. Bellamy tells her about the not-quite-a-wolf, keeps his tone casual. "In any case, I'm sure it'll taste better than nutrition bars ever could," he says, and Raven's laughter is interrupted by a yawn.

She wakes up with her right sock still on, a blanket thrown over her and Bellamy's thigh as her pillow. He's still sitting against the wall, feet hanging off the bed. "Bellamy," she whispers, moves to sit up. The emergency light is still on, the aid kid on the floor. She doesn't know what time it is, but she guesses it's way past dinner --well before dawn. "Bellamy," she insists. She manages to reach the lamp and turn it off without actually having to stand up, and throws a punch in the dark that lands on his shoulder. He mumbles without opening his eyes. 

"Blake, take off your damn shoes and lay down like a normal person."


End file.
